Debra Benita Shaw is a Reader in Cultural Theory and Programme Leader for the Cultural Studies single honours degree. She has worked at UEL for eleven years, prior to which she taught English Literature and Critical Theory at the University of North London (now London Metropolitan). She gained her doctorate in 1995 under the supervision of Professor Jon Cook at the University of East Anglia.

Debra teaches on a range of modules which serve as core to several programmes in the school. She is responsible for administration of the single honours Cultural Studies programme and is a member of the Centre for Cultural Studies Research.

Debra is interested in cultural theory and its application to everyday life with a particular emphasis on science and technology, the city and popular culture. She is also an expert in science fiction criticism and teaching. 

BA (Hons) Cultural Studies (Single and combined honours)

• Reading Cultures: The Politics of Representation
• Culture, Technology & Power
• Popular Culture: Studies in the Culture of Capitalism
• Realism, Fantasy & Utopia
• Culture, Power & Resistance in the 21^st Century
• Technoculture: Technology & Social Realities  

Debra is currently working on her third book which will explore the usefulness of theories of posthumanism to understanding the cultural life of contemporary cities and the possibilities for social justice now and in the future. In 2009, she edited a special edition of the journal Science as Culture subtitled 'Technology, Death & The Cultural Imagination' (Volume 18, Issue 3) and, in 2011, she contributed a chapter 'Monsters in the Metropolis: Pirate Utopias and the New Politics of Space' to the volume Transgression 2.0: Media, Culture & The Politics of a Digital Age (Continuum).

• 'Monsters in the Metropolis: Pirate Utopias and the New Politics of Space' in Ted Gournelos and David J Gunkel (eds.).Transgression 2.0: Media, Culture & the Politics of a Digital Age. Continuum, 2011. ISBN:  9781441168337.
• Technoculture: The Key Concepts, Berg, 2008.
• Systems, Architecture & The Digital Body' in Parallax, 14:3, August, 2008, pp74-87. ISSN: 1460-700X (electronic) 1353-4645 (paper)
• 'Sex and the Single Starship Captain: Compulsory Heterosexuality and Star Trek: Voyager' in Femspec, Vol VII, Issue 1, 2006, pp66-85. ISSN: 1523-4002
• ‘Bodies Out of This World: The Space Suit as Cultural Icon’ in Science as Culture, Vol 13, No 1, March, 2004, pp123-144.  ISSN: 0950-5431
• ‘The Scientist Goes Surfing: Timothy Leary, LSD & The Internet’ in New Formations: Complex Figures, No. 49, Spring, 2003, pp110-123. ISBN: 0-85315-974-2
• ‘Making Starship Troopers’ in Bad Subjects, No 63, April, 2003,
• ‘The Video Word Made Flesh:  Spectacular Transgressions in David Cronenberg’s Videodrome’ in Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction, No 84 (Spring, 2002), pp22-35.  ISSN: 0306-4964258
• Women, Science & Fiction:  The Frankenstein Inheritance, Palgrave (Macmillan) Press, 2000.
• ‘Virtually Human:  Replication & Subjectivity in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner’ in
• Wojciech Kalaga and Tadeusz Rachwal (eds) Signs of Culture: Simulacra and the Real, Frankfurt, Berlin, New York: Lang Verlag, 2000, pp203-214.  ISSN: 1434-0313, ISBN; 3-631-36559-4, US-ISBN: 0-8204-4775-7
• ‘In Her Own Image:  The Constructed Female in Women’s Science Fiction’ in Science as Culture, Vol 3, Pt 2, No 15, Free Association Books, 1992, pp263-281, ISSN: 0950-5431   

Centre for Cultural Studies Research 

• 'Systems, Architecture & The Digital Body'  

• 'Monsters in the Metropolis: Social Centres, Cultural Production and the Re-structuring of Capital'